Time to take obesity seriously

May 26, 2010

Of all the problems the United States of America is dealing with, one of the biggest is the least publicized. While President Barack Obama debates several other issues, America's obesity problem continues to grow. Recently, Jamie Oliver gave an important and relevant talk on TED (www.ted.com) about America's growing obesity epidemic. Throughout his talk, he made several good points about where our problem originates and how we can correct it.

One person dies every five minutes because of the food he eats and the resulting health conditions. Today, deaths from health related causes are rarely covered in the news, but 53 percent of all deaths due to heart disease, cancer, or diabetes seem very relevant. Most of these deaths are caused in part or completely by eating disorders and obesity. In West Virginia, Oliver conducted an experiment about excessive weight and food education in schools. In a kindergarten class, not one student was able to correctly identify common vegetables. Our children won't eat something if they don't know what it is. Even so, with kids, if it doesn't taste good, they won't eat it. For this reason, bad tastes are often covered up. However, a child drinking two cartons of chocolate milk per day will consume an extra eight tablespoons of sugar daily. During their elementary school career alone, this same child will consume an extra 14,608 tablespoons of sugar just from drinking chocolate milk over regular milk alone. Oliver also suggests that the government work with the fast food chains to help wean the American people off of the fat, sugar, and non-food ingredients. One trend I have noticed is that it is now a necessity to pay to be healthy. Panera Bread, voted #1 healthiest for eating on the go, is noticeably more expensive than McDonald's. There is no reason someone should want to keep America chubby, and these issues are all very real and correctable.

Obesity in America is a huge problem and is growing still. The good news is that it is entirely preventable and reversible with proper education, diet and exercise. All of these things can be achieved simply by educating our children on the right things to eat and boycotting fast food. The issue of American obesity is definitely something that should be served on President Obama's plate. Without change soon, millions of Americans will become a statistic.